sepefrio

As for the market here, we are in a lot better shape than most areas. The entire area, VB, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Hampton etc were severely undervalued when the boom began. Most of the price increases didn't over inflate the values, instead they brought them into par. There has since been a small drop off but nothing like I see in other areas. Will it be easy, nope, but starting a business never is. BTW, are you thinking of working for an established company or for yourself. Also, you need to check out the below link. It is to the Alpha College of Real Estate. They have started offering HI classes on the different subjects. Kenny Hart, a long time area inspector and good guy is the instructor there. Not real expensive and a great supplement to the knowledge base. http://alphacollegeofrealestate.com/05b ... ilding.php

Wrong, most suggest against taking the 10 day course and thats it! I took the AHIT course here in VB and it was awesome STARTER material. Can you do home inspections after this course? Sure. Can you do them right, probably not. You must realize that this course puts in 10 days what the old timers had to learn in 10-20 years. It's just not possible. I have put in almost 6 months of more self study, mentoring and ride alongs after class to just get to noob status. Also, if you want to be an HI, realize it will take some cash outlay, it is not as easy as they like to make it sound. I would estimate I spent 10k on starting my business here. Of course you don't have to do it like me and you can save some money but it will take some none the less. AHIT will try and sell you TON's of stuff. Tools, software, marketing material and more. Unless you intend to open your doors the day after class, I don't think any of it is needed. Also, a lot of those items may be found at better prices elsewhere or the material might now be the best fit for you. For example the reporting system they use, it's OK, but that isn't how everyone does it. There may be a better method for you out there besides AHIT's. Remember, anything worth doing is worth doing right. Also, people that try and sell you things, they usually tell you the best possible cases and others like to state the worst possible cases. You need to find out what is your case and go from there. Call me tomorrow and we'll have lunch and I can tell you how it went, and how is going for me here and maybe what you might expect.

All exposed wires should be properly covered where they can be damaged. A guess this is a perfect example of bad grammar?

If your interested, here are the writers and publishers Email. Publisher - Terra Kerkemeyer - terrak@neondsl.com Staff Writer - Mona Sandefur - mona@neondsl.com

Darren, Bill Ross is top notch and yes he is with AHIT, thats where I got my initial training too. But like I have said before and so have many others, there is only so much they can teach in 8 days and even though it's quality, it doesn't make people home inspectors all on it's own.

my Email is still electronic I haven't upgraded to computer yet

Well dang, I just wasted the last 4 years of my life. If I had only read that before I started studying and training. Oh well, I'll just face the music now and quit..... Not, lol

The only clearance I know of with a stove is for a range over it. 18" Thats not safety, thats so the exhaust fans works effectively

Hrmm, good point Richard, all refers thats I have seen drain into the floor, erm, the drain pan. And that has me thinking now, I have a ice and water dispenser on my fridge, if I let the water run with no glass, it drains to somewhere? Is it to the pan or is it recycled?

Tommy, Virginia Beach? tell ya what, buy me lunch and a beer and we'll talk about it. BTW, first thing I learned on this site, Mike knows what he's talking about so you better do as he says, lol. John Coker (757) 202-3282 john@familyhomeinspection.com

I am currently helping my friend tile his house. We came to one point that had a small bump so out came the grinder. This bump was apparently laid there to cover up this wooden stake. The stake is soaking wet, you can press on it and water comes out. Since this one we have found two more, in no discernible pattern except that they are in different rooms. The other two stakes unlike this one, have mostly rotted out from water damage. I can only assume they go all the way through the foundation and into the ground and are obtaining the moisture from there. They are about 1in square and my guess is maybe they were left behind by mistake when the foundation was poured. Do you have any clue why these might be here, beside sloppy work or a mistake? [/url] [/url]

I found this video and found it very well rounded information about GFCI putting it in words we can use to Realtors and customers. I actually didn't know about the major change in 2006 that prevents companies from making GFCI's that will not rest if wired improperly. If you let the next video play, it talks about the child proof outlets that were added to the 2008 code. http://www.electricsmarts.com/container ... d=9503&tid

arrow meet bullseye!! This site has probably saved me thousands of dollars already. From advice and tips and how too. Between the mistakes I can now avoid, the aspirin I won't have to buy and the lawsuits I probably avoided, yup.

I actually disagree with some comments slightly. I think this is a GREAT time to get into the business if your prepared. I agree 100% on the HI schools, but any decent HI should be able to figure that out by themselves after completing the course. But as for the market, yes it is tougher now than before, which makes winning even more satisfying. HI's and agents alike are bailing left and right and when all is said and done, those left standing will be stronger for it. If you get referrals from an agent (without selling out) that can survive it, odds are you will too. Especially as a new HI, it can't get any worse than it is now, which means it can only get better. I mean heck, a new HI starts by doing 0 inspections a week until the marketing starts to work. Even then, even you old time studs admit, hoping for 50-100 inspections in the first year is a lot. I think it would be worse for those with 2-5 years average as they have settled into a routine and are now seeing their inspection numbers decrease and that is hard to handle. Do your job, and do it right, and do it right all the time and the rest will fall into place.

Thanks for the update Chad.

For $2 you get a $2 hair cut.

OK, so if you go into a bedroom with one general light switch that controls a single electrical socket and it is not labeled in any way, it needs to be written up?

LOL, I know what ya mean Terry, besides, everything has a silver lining. If she never asked me I never would have found those new covers for my office.

Today I was out pounding the streets trying to get my name out there. On one of my stops, a Realtor quizzed me, apparently to test my knowledge. But one of her questions was very odd and I either blew it, or she had no clue what she was talking about in the first place. It started off with, my husband told me about this and I want to know what you think. Regarding light switches on the wall. She asked if there is a requirement for the switch itself to have the words on/off on them. She continued that her husband said, any switch which was the sole switch to a light required them, and any switch, that also had other switches (like one switch at the bottom of the stairs, and one at the top for the same light) were required to be blank. I told her that of course lights in stairwells should have a switch at the top and the bottom, but I have never heard that the switch itself should or should not have the words on/off on them. Is there any such requirement? Was she confused with another requirement that I can't figure right now? Was she trying to set me up? Or was she, and or her husband just being dumb? I've looked and looked and find nothing about the on/off markings on a switch. I did find the below however, so at least now I don't think it was a waste of time. http://www.mypartypost.com/slideshow.ph ... hcover.jpg

Kind of on subject, but not really, then again we could hijack this thread and make it an overall web tips page. In response to my web page, some have suggested taking down the site until it is optimized. The reasoning behind this is so Google or others doesn't find the page, with errors, then ranks it to page 13,874. Once ranked, it is a lot harder to improve the ranking, so it is critical to et the best initial ranking you can. But my problem is simple. First I use Notepad to work on my page. Second, I use the inputs of others, TIJ, family and friends to make improvement. If i took the site down no one would be able to see it to help out. Well I found a way to do both. You need to make a robots.txt file and put it in the root directory. In the file put the below code. This will tell all spiders to skip your page. Not broken link or other negative item, just skip over. So my page is up for everyone except spiders to see. User-agent: * Disallow: / If you want more info on this goto: http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html

I didn't say that. If you look at their sample report, it shows a few spills sites with status closed. What does that mean? Closed; they can't clean it up or closed; it was all removed or what? Yes I would want to know if the house was next to a super fund site, but I would want more than that. Also, I didn't see anywhere in that sample report where it said anything about airport flight patterns, expansive soil or fissures? Speaking of Airports, I do know, that at least in Virginia if a home is anywhere near a flight pattern or other high DB noise area, EVERY buyer must sign a statement saying they are aware of it. The report is 13 pages long yet only 4 are the actual report, the rest is definitions or where to get more information. Hidden in all that towards the bottom is this nice remark.... Any analyses, estimates, ratings or risk codes provided in this Report are provided for illustrative purposes only, and are not intended to provide, nor should they be interpreted as providing any facts regarding, or prediction or forecast of, any environmental risk for any property. Only a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment performed by an environmental professional can provide information regarding the environmental risk for any property. So they themselves say the report is NOT factual. It is their best guess by a limited search. Plus they can't spell, the above is a cut and paste, the spelling errors are theirs. A legal contract with spelling errors gives me the chills. The idea of the report is a good idea. But again to me, this sample report from this company just does not impress me. I'd love to know a lot of things, but this report doesn't tell me anything. It is 100% based on the reports or finding of other companies or Government agencies who even they say may or may not be reliable. All this company appears to do is collect information off the internet and make a generic report that they won't even stand behind. Improve the product, actually do some work besides marketing, be more willing to stand behind it and I might be more open to it. Right now, I won't touch it with a ten foot pole.

To be honest, that report was very vague. It created more questions for me than it answered. OK, so no leaks on my property. But several within .5 miles. What does that mean? What kind of leaks? The reports are closed, does that mean it's cleaned up? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I just don't like the way it's reported. And don't forget, it doesn't matter what company stands behind it, your the one giving the customer the report thus they grade you on it. To me it's just to wishy washy.

I like to ask things besides the obvious, so here goes. What is in that corrugated tubing? And what is that a duct for? It's rather large in size so I'm thinking AC, but can that be from a chimney? If so I'm thinking that stuff is too close. Also, I'll see if I can find it, but isn't there something about no junction box within X distance of gas lines even if wired correctly? And is that corrosion or sealant on the gas line? I ask because I only see it on two of the connections and not the others and on one connection, the bottom one, it appears to extend past the width of the pipe like corrosion would. As a matter of fact, that looks like two different type metal pipes, thus leading to the corrosion? To me, thats just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

Whats wrong? I don't get it. I mean it kind of looks like my siding where I keep my BBQ. The guy I bought if from said it helps diffuse the smoke of the BBQ. ATTENTION: The above is sarcasim

Are they honestly telling inspectors in training not to perform simple tasks such as this? Well I can answer that question for ya. Yup, but not just telling, more or less berating you not to as it opens up a can of worms. Stories of how inspectors were accused of breaking it by opening it. At least the class I took, except for the electrical panel, we were "advised" not to remove anything on anything. But I think it's a company line as when I spoke to one of the instructors off line I made a comment about it and he just smiled and sorta nodded and I caught the hint.